Does God Have a Body? Rāmānuja's Challenge to the Christian Tradition

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 31 Celebrating Rāmānuja at 1000: The Heritage and Promise of the Study of Rāmānuja Article 19 in a Christian-Hindu Comparative Theology

2018

Does God Have a Body? Rāmānuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradition

Jon Paul Sydnor Emmanuel College, Boston

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Recommended Citation Sydnor, Jon Paul (2018) "Does God Have a Body? Rāmānuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradition," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 31, Article 19. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1696

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

Does God Have a Body? Rāmānuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradition

Jon Paul Sydnor Emmanuel College, Boston

ABSTRACT: The Christian tradition’s core Christian life. For embodied beings, any theological assertion is the embodiment of pastoral theology should commend God in the person of Jesus Christ. Yet, even embodiment within the Godhead. while asserting God’s incarnation in space and Hinduism, Christianity, and Godhead time, the tradition has usually denied Embodiment: Continuing a liberal Christian embodiment unto the Godhead itself. trajectory toward divine embodiment. Theologians have based this denial on Jewish The Christian tradition presumes divine iconoclasm, Greek idealism, and inferences embodiment, founded as it is on the from God’s omnipresence, transcendence, and expression of the divine Logos in Jesus Christ infinity. This speculative essay will argue that (John 1). At the same time, the tradition has Hindu Śrīvaiṣṇava theologian Rāmānuja usually denied the possibility of Godhead successfully addresses these concerns. He embodiment—the assertion that God in argues for the embodiment of an omnipresent, Godself possesses a body. This essay will transcendent, and infinite personal God. tentatively, provisionally, and speculatively Rāmānuja largely derives his arguments from assert divine embodiment within the Godhead the Hindu scriptures. Nevertheless, their itself. Since creation is an expression of the rational explication and internal coherence overflowing love of God, our created condition render divine embodiment a legitimate must be a blessing. Hence, our material theological option for the Christian tradition, existence cannot be inferior to any purely whose scriptures present both spiritual existence, nor need we subordinate anthropomorphic and iconoclastic concepts of body to soul. God. Since Godhead embodiment is Biblically, Genesis 1.24-27 defines ontologically coherent and rationally humankind as made in the image of God. The defensible, Christians must accept or reject it Christian tradition has interpreted this text in based on axiological grounds, by evaluating many different ways. Athanasius defines the the felt consequences of the doctrine in image of God as, at least in part, our ability to

Jon Paul Sydnor is Associate Professor of World Religions at Emmanuel College in Boston, U.S.A, where he chairs the Theology and Religious Studies Department. His academic specialization is interreligous thought. Dr. Sydnor is the author of Ramanuja and Schleiermacher: Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology (2011) and numerous articles. Currently, he is researching fundamental ontologies of relation across multiple traditions. Dr. Sydnor is an ordained Protestant minister and theologian-in-residence at Grace Community Boston where his wife, Rev. Abby Henrich, serves as pastor.

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reason.1 Augustine, basing his interpretation rugged, lone maverick who thrives outside of of the image of God on the Trinity, notes that community, who is nonexpressive, psychologically we are three making a whole— unemotional, and antisocial. He needs no one.6 memory, intellect, and will co-operating In response to this diagnosis, certain within one person.2 More sympathetic to our theologians, such as Thomas J. Oord, have agenda, Irenaeus insists that the image of God instead argued for the passibility of God—that includes every part of a human—soul, spirit, God feels, and feels deeply. God is sympathetic and body. Hence, to invoke the divine image is to human events, responsive to human cries, to integrate all three aspects of our person and personally active in human affairs. God is into one experiential unity.3 Like Irenaeus, we highly involved, as a full person—thinking, are now attempting to define the image of God feeling, talking, and changing.7 This passible in this-worldly, embodied terms. Defined thus, concept of God implies rejecting another creation in the image of God invites us to traditionally ascribed quality of God, that of celebrate our condition as personal, local, and immutability. This doctrine asserts that God, sentient beings. Indeed, creation in the image being perfect, cannot change. The universe of God allows us to imagine God in Godself as cannot affect this perfectly actual God, who embodied—personal, local, and sentient— transcends the vicissitudes of creatures within although limitless with regard to this creation.8 However, as noted above, the universe. biblical God changes often. Moreover, if God is This consideration of divine embodiment a divine person, or a community of divine continues the trajectory of liberal Christian persons, and not an abstract ideal, then God theology which, over the past several decades, must be receptive to interpersonal influence. has adopted reforms that celebrate the human Love demands both openness to reality and condition. For example, most authoritative vulnerability to community, so steadfast love Christian theologians, such as St. Thomas will produce unceasing change.9 Aquinas, deem God to be impassible: without The divine mutability suggests, by way of passions, free of appetites, and incapable of consequence, the divine temporality. God is sensation.4 However, many theologians of not atemporal, in some timeless, transcendent late—feminist, womanist, process, open, et state. Instead, God is temporal, participating al—have reconsidered the doctrine of in time, open to change to the very core of the impassibility, describing it as both unbiblical divine being. To clarify: God as the creator and and patriarchal. As unbiblical, the doctrine sustainer of our spacetime cannot be limited ignores numerous biblical texts in which God to it—God is not restricted to our temporal is interactive, emotional, even conversational universe, as it were. But God is open to the (Exodus 33:11). The Bible ascribes qualities to succession of feelings, events, and emotions God that imply passability such as compassion that relationality affords. God is personal and (Exodus 22:27). God even changes the divine relational, which is to be timeful.10 mind, when presented with a convincing Finally, the doctrine of the social Trinity argument (Numbers 14:13-25, Amos 7:3, 6).5 As has received increased attention over the past patriarchal, the doctrine of divine several decades, led by such theologians as impassibility suggests a stoical male ideal who Jurgen Moltmann, Catherine Mowry Lacugna, is personally distant and emotionally John D. Zizioulas, and Leonardo Boff. While the unavailable. Impassibility celebrates the concept of God as three persons in

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol31/iss1/19 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1696 2 Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

20 Jon Paul Sydnor

communion has perennial expression within Nārāyaṇa unifies them through his sustenance Christianity, concerns regarding tritheism and diversifies them with real difference.12 caused the tradition to, at times, emphasize They are, simultaneously, one and many. the unity of God over the diversity within God. Such panentheism has parallels within the The theologians above, on the other hand, Christian tradition, even as Christianity has emphasize interpersonality within the usually rejected emanationism. Emanationism Godhead. In their view, God is three always is found suspect on several counts. First, in the becoming one, rather than one with three substantialist wording of the traditional different expressions. The multiplicity of God creeds, only Christ is of one substance precedes the unicity of God, not temporally, (homooúsios) with the Father. In order to but ontologically. Without community, preserve the uniqueness of Christ, the rest of without increase-through-relation, God would the universe must be of a different substance not be.11 from the Father. Since emanationism implies To many Christians, these three the universal sharing of one divine substance, theological reforms—interpreting God as substantialist christologies preclude mutable, temporal, and social—are highly emanationism.13 salutary. They re-articulate the biblical If the universe must be of a different assertion that we are made in the image of substance from the Father and Son, but is not God—for love, relationship, and community. made of pre-existing, recalcitrant matter (as And they celebrate the human condition as an in Plato’s Timaeus), then it must have been expression of the divine condition. Now, let us created from nothingness. In other words, the consider how the thought of Rāmānuja might Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, or help us to continue along this liberal Christian creation from nothing, results at least trajectory and consider divine embodiment, partially from substantialist Christology. The even unto the Godhead. (Please note: what universe arose by the will of God, but it does follows is speculative theology. I believe the not derive from the very being of God. It position taken is worth consideration, but I do derives from elsewhere, from the nihil, which not assert that it is true.) God’s gracious will overcomes through Cosmic embodiment: The universe as the body creative speech. So crucial was creatio ex of Nārāyaṇa. nihilo to the integrity of Christian thought Rāmānuja’s theology offers several modes that The Fourth Lateran Council declared it of divine being. We must distinguish these dogma in 1215 (Constitution I), and the First modes of divine being in order to understand Vatican Council of 1869-1870 anathematized how they cohere. To begin, Rāmānuja all who asserted emanationism (Canon I.3-4). proposes a panentheistic, emanationist The liberal Christian theological tradition account of divine embodiment, in which within which we are speculating has newly Nārāyaṇa supports and controls the universe celebrated vulnerability, participation, and of sentient and nonsentient beings. Just as our dynamism as coordinate with love, hence self controls and supports our body, Nārāyaṇa integral to God. Theologians like Friedrich controls and supports the universe as his Schleiermacher have offered Christologies body. All souls and bodies, all spirit and based on agapic phenomenology rather than 14 matter, derive their being from Nārāyaṇa, as substantialist ontology. Since such distinct modes of Nārāyaṇa’s self-expression. Christologies do not hinge on a substantialist

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distinction between the Creator and creation, central to our argument for Godhead we no longer need reject panentheism as embodiment. In addition to cosmic divine Christologically incoherent. Instead of being embodiment, Rāmānuja also advocates unified in substance with the Creator, Christ personal divine embodiment. In other words, can become the One who is perfectly aware of Rāmānuja proposes that God possesses a the universe’s source in creative, divine love. divine form (divyarūpa)—a sensible, Through this awareness, Christ imbues humanlike, embodied expression of divinity humanity with the universal, unconditional that is unconditionally ultimate. Crucially, this love that is its rightful inheritance.15 divine form is unified with an essential form Some process theologians, such as Charles (svarūpa)—an invisible, omnipresent, Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, and Marjorie transcendent aspect. In Rāmānuja’s theistic Suchocki, have objected that classical theism tradition, the abstract, essential form of God divides the world (matter) from God (spirit), begs expression in the concrete, personal form rendering the universe profane. As a of God, just as the concrete, personal form correction, they assert the presence of God finds it saving completion in the abstract, within the world through a soul-body analogy essential form. Humans need God to be a similar to Rāmānuja’s. According to these person who is somewhere and a presence who theologians, the soul-body analogy allows us is everywhere, so God fulfills both needs. to sense God within the universe, while also Below, I will explicate Rāmānuja’s doctrine of acknowledging that God exceeds the universe. the divyarūpa (concrete, personal form) of The concept articulates our experience of God God as I note how it addresses traditional as both immanent and transcendent. It Christian objections to Godhead embodiment. ascribes the holiness of the universe to a Since most of the Christian sources in this source beyond, thereby celebrating the essay are systematic theologians, for my divinity of all reality, while avoiding explication of Rāmānuja I will primarily rely pantheism and championing panentheism.16 on the Vedārthasaṅgraha, his most systematic Thus, these Christian theologians offer work of theology. concepts of the God-world relationship A Constructed Hindu-Christian Dialogue analogous to Rāmānuja’s. God’s creative, Christian objections to Godhead embodiment. sustaining power results in cosmic Christian objections to embodiment embodiment. The universe is the body of God, within the Godhead have taken several forms, who includes and exceeds the universe, just as which we will review below. Before we begin, we include and exceed our own bodies. we must note that Rāmānuja cannot address Personal embodiment: The beautiful, sensible, objections based on Christian scripture. Some humanlike form of God. Christians interpret the commandment As we have seen, according to Rāmānuja against making graven images (Exodus 20:4) as divinity finds embodiment in the universe. a declaration of the disembodiment of God. Rāmānuja’s doctrine of divine embodiment More compellingly, John 4:24a declares: “God could certainly inform Christian panentheism. is Spirit”. Conversely, other passages suggest Indeed, Ankur Barua has magisterially utilized the embodiment of God. Genesis 3:8 describes Rāmānuja to buttress Christian concepts of the God as walking in the Garden of Eden. Jacob cosmos as the body of God.17 However, claims to have seen God face to face (Genesis Rāmānuja makes another move that is more 32.30). In Exodus 33:22, God covers Moses’ face

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol31/iss1/19 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1696 4 Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

22 Jon Paul Sydnor

with the divine hand in order to protect Moses predicates constitute a subject. There is no from seeing God. So, even though Rāmānuja subject without qualities. Problematically, cannot refute biblical arguments against humans cannot “think” the divine attributes Godhead embodiment, these arguments are as divine attributes. Due to our limited human not themselves conclusive, since the Bible epistemological situation, we can only “think” offers multiple attitudes toward embodiment. human attributes, then project them onto In order to avoid the quicksand of scriptural God. Therefore, God can be no more than a polemics, this essay will present theological conglomeration of the best human attributes. objections to Godhead embodiment, not Theology is epistemologically limited to scriptural objections. After presenting each anthropology. Inevitably, to worship God is to theological objection, I will present celebrate the best in humankind. Having Rāmānuja’s implicit response to it. ascribed the best of our qualities to God, we Cumulatively, the responses will provide a may then infer the existence of God serviceable introduction to Rāmānuja’s underlying those qualities. But that is only doctrine of divine, personal embodiment. because we are familiar with our own Objection: The embodied God is an existence, underlying our own (more mixed) anthropomorphic projection. qualities. In the end, the existence of God is If thy predicates are anthropomorphisms, but a projection of our own, very human, 19 the subject of them is an existence. anthropomorphism too. If love, goodness, Rāmānuja replies: God is not personality, &c, are human attributes, so anthropomorphic; humans are theomorphic. also is the subject which thou Rāmānuja’s concept of God maintains a presupposest, the existence of God, the profound tension. Rāmānuja defines God’s belief that there is a God, an svarūpa, the proper form or essence, as anthropomorphism - a presupposition infinite, pure, blissful knowledge. This purely human…Thou believest in love as a definition is abstract and impersonal, in divine attribute because thou thyself accord with the early, nontheistic Upaniṣadic lovest; thou believest that God is a wise, tradition. At the same time, Rāmānuja also benevolent being because thou knowest conceptualizes God as possessing a divyarūpa, nothing better in thyself than or divine form. This divine form has a benevolence and wisdom; and thou beautiful, youthful appearance. He is a person believest that God exists, and that with a personal name: Nārāyaṇa. This concept therefore he is a subject…because thou of the divine accords with the highly personal existest, art thyself a subject. (Ludwig devotion that characterizes Rāmānuja’s own Feuerbach)18 Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. The German philosopher Ludwig Worried about theological literalism, the Feuerbach most famously asserted that God is Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and a projection of the highest human ideals. Islam have traditionally been chary, to varying Feuerbach himself insisted that he was not an degrees, of humanlike depictions or atheist. Nevertheless, his religious humanism conceptions of deity. The academic study of has occasionally earned him a place among religion has come to categorize such Paul Ricoeur’s masters of suspicion: Marx, depictions as “anthropomorphic”. But, from Nietzsche, and Freud. According to Feuerbach, the perspective of Rāmānuja, the ascription of

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a divine form (divyarūpa) to Nārāyaṇa is not Embodiment suggests finitude. A body is technically anthropomorphic, since human not infinite, it is finite. A body is not every knowledge of Nārāyaṇa’s bodily form is body, it is some body, so it becomes one among scripturally derived rather than humanly many, an object among objects. This status projected.20 Indeed, Rāmānuja insists on the precludes divinity. God cannot be a supreme reality of the divine form based on the being among beings, because then God would authority of scripture, particularly the be exceeded by being itself. By way of Brahma Sutras (1.1.21), which claim that consequence, God must be something more. Brahman (a more generalized term for the God must be, at least, the ground of being that ultimate, personal God) dwells within the sustains all beings. For this reason, Christian Sun.21 Elsewhere, Rāmānuja cites theistic theology has generally rejected Godhead Upaniṣads that describe Brahman as wearing a embodiment.25 22 saffron-colored garment, having the color of Rāmānuja replies: Embodiment and infinitude 23 the sun, and being moon-faced. Crucially, are compatible; the embodied God remains Nārāyaṇa’s humanlike form ontologically (not transcendent. chronologically) precedes and grounds human Writing for his devotional, theistic existence. Therefore, any interpretation of Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, Rāmānuja seeks to Nārāyaṇa as anthropomorphic is mistaken. preserve the majestic transcendence of Nārāyaṇa is not anthropomorphic; humans Nārāyaṇa. Some religious traditions assert are theomorphic. divine transcendence by adopting apophatic Objection: Embodiment would diminish interpretations of God, denying to God all God. humanly knowable attributes, in an attempt to [The most ancient philosophers] all preserve the wholly other nature of the divine. posited an infinite first principle of things, Śaṅkara and his later Advaitin followers as though compelled by truth itself. Yet utilized this approach, arguing that Brahman they did not recognize their own voice. is ultimately nirguṇa, without qualities, but They judged the infinity of the first may be conceptualized as saguṇa, with principle in terms of discrete quantity, qualities, by those less advanced on the path following Democritus, who posited to enlightenment.26 infinite atoms as the principles of things, Rāmānuja, on the other hand, and also Anaxagoras, who posited infinite categorically rejects nirguṇa, apophatic similar parts as the principles of things. Or approaches to understanding God. Yet his they judged infinity in terms of saguṇa, cataphatic approach, which ascribes continuous quantity, following those who real qualities to God, risks rendering the posited that the first principle of all things divine comprehensible or mundane. If we use was some element or a confused infinite language to describe God, and assert that the body. But, since it was shown by the effort language is in some way true, then the infinite of later philosophers that there is no God may become bound within our finite infinite body, given that there must be a language. Thus, the transcendence of God first principle that is in some way infinite, would be lost to the linguistic description of we conclude that the infinite which is the God. We seem to be caught in a theological first principle is neither a body nor a vise: either we can describe God (the power in a body. (St. Thomas Aquinas)24 cataphatic approach) and render God finite, or

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol31/iss1/19 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1696 6 Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

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we can leave God a contentless mystery (the not considered with reference to apophatic approach) and preserve God’s inscrutability, but with reference to its infinity. being without dimensions, and not having Rāmānuja navigates this Scylla and a limit. And therefore it is without form Charybdis of theology through the practice of and name. (Clement of Alexandria)28 transcataphatic theism. That is, he uses If an embodied God were everywhere, language to describe God, and asserts that his then those parts constituting God’s body language reveals something true about God. would mix with the parts constituting the But the positive attributes ascribed to God are universe. God would be divided and jumbled. themselves infinite, as befitting an infinite In order to avoid this confusion, we could God. Hence, his approach unites divine assert that God is somewhere, not everywhere. transcendence with cataphatic theology—it is But then God would be limited in space. God transcataphatic. In other words, Rāmānuja’s would be there instead of here, or here instead concept of God has positive content yet of there. As sinners, we could hide from God. exceeds human understanding. As sufferers, we could find ourselves outside Metaphorically, Rāmānuja describes Nārāyaṇa God’s grace. But scripture, tradition, reason, as an ocean of auspicious qualities, possessing and experience all attest that God is uniformly excellences beyond comprehension. In this and absolutely present throughout our lives, way, Rāmānuja transfers the immensity of the both in time and space, undiluted and ocean to the person of Nārāyaṇa, leaving him undivided. God is perfectly God, everywhere. as unfathomable as the depths of the sea.27 The Therefore, God cannot be embodied. God must sheer infinity of Nārāyaṇa’s attributes, and be spirit—infinite, invisible presence.29 Nārāyaṇa’s capacity to bear this infinity of Rāmānuja replies: Embodiment and ubiquity attributes, establishes Nārāyaṇa’s eclipse of all are reconciled in Nārāyaṇa. human thought. He is always more than what Rāmānuja provides a coherent account of we have said, so his being remains within the embodiment and ubiquity of Nārāyaṇa. In sublime mystery. By adopting transcataphatic his doctrine of the ātman (the soul; here, the theism, Rāmānuja preserves the beauty, personal soul), Rāmānuja asserts that the personality, and transcendence of the divine, ātman is both aṇu (atomic, localizable) and yet rejects the impersonal transcendence that vibhū (pervasive within the body). Just as a characterizes Advaitin apophatic (nirguṇa) sandalwood object scents a room with the transtheism. Nārāyaṇa is a loving divinity fragrance of sandalwood, so an atomic soul rather than an indifferent absolute, a pervades a body with sentience. Similarly, we relational personality rather than pure can conceptualize Nārāyaṇa as aṇu, localizable consciousness. within his heavenly abode of Vaikuṇṭha, in the Objection: Divine embodiment suggests presence of his consort Śrī. At the same time, limited locality rather than unlimited we can conceptualize Nārāyaṇa as vibhū, omnipresence. pervasive within all that exists as the ground On account of His greatness [God] is of being. In this way, Nārāyaṇa becomes a ranked as the All, and is the Father of the person who is somewhere (Nārāyaṇa in universe. Nor are any parts to be Vaikuṇṭha) and a substance that is predicated of Him…For the One is everywhere (jñāna, or wisdom, as the indivisible; wherefore also it is infinite, underlying substrate of reality). In this way,

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Rāmānuja unites the strengths of theism and Viṣṇu. It is the means of Viṣṇu’s creation, not transtheism in one personal, omnipresent an accident of his subconscious. As the deity.30 occupants of Viṣṇu’s magic, we occupy the Objection: An omnipresent body would mind of God, which pervades our universe displace all other bodies. even as Viṣṇu resides locally in heaven. How can the principle be maintained, that Our own experience of dreaming God permeates and fills all things, as illustrates the spatial elasticity of Scripture says, “Do not I fill Heaven and embodiment. When we dream, our dreaming Earth, saith the Lord?” [Jeremiah 23.24]. body is somewhere. But in our dream, our For it is impossible to permeate and be dreamed body is somewhere else. We are two permeated by others without dividing and places at once, as both dreamer and dreamed. being divided, without being blended and All the other bodies in our dream exist, contrasted, just as when a number of alongside our dreamed body, in spatial liquids are mixed together and blended. relation to our dreamed body, within our (St. John of Damascus)31 dreaming mind. That is, they are spatially Two bodies cannot occupy the same space. related to one another in the dream, but not They displace one another. That’s why billiard spatially related to the dreaming mind, being balls move other billiard balls and couples unaware of their invisible sustainer. God, like sharing a bed fight for territory. If God is any dreamer, can be embodied and pervade omnipresent and has a body, then God would bodies, just as we are embodied and our mind displace all other bodies. Quite simply, no pervades the bodies within our dream. other bodies could exist besides God’s. Therefore, God cannot have a body.32 Rāmānuja replies: The Śrīvaiṣṇava doctrine of dreaming creation resolves the contest between bodies. Rāmānuja’s tradition provides a visual reconciliation of the divine embodiedness and omnipresence, in the figure of Viṣṇu dreaming the universe into being. To this image of Viṣṇu Rāmānuja dedicates his Vedārthasaṅgraha: “I offer adoration to Vishnu, the all-pervading Figure 1: Viṣṇu Dreaming (Credit: Wikicommons) Supreme Being, who is the overlord of all Objection: Embodiment limits to a place, sentient and non-sentient entities, who hence limits our knowledge to a reposes on the primordial Shesa, who is pure perspective. and infinite and in whom abound blissful 33 Intellectual knowledge, moreover, is more perfections.” In this image, Viṣṇu is in certain than sensitive knowledge. In Vaikuṇṭha where he reclines on the cosmic nature we find an object for the sense and serpent Śeṣa, generating our own universe by therefore for the intellect as well. But the the power of his imaginative dreaming. But order and distinction of powers is Viṣṇu’s dreaming is not like our dreaming—it according to the order of objects. is free, aware, and purposeful, directed by Therefore, above all sensible things there

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol31/iss1/19 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1696 8 Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

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is something intelligible among things. subjective, and situated. It must be Now, every body having actual existence transcendent, objective, and universal.35 is sensible. Therefore, we can find Rāmānuja replies: Nārāyaṇa is an embodied something nobler above all bodies. Hence, person who knows, but Nārāyaṇa is also if God is a body, He will not be the first and knowledge itself. 34 greatest being. (St. Thomas Aquinas) The proper form (svarūpa) of Aquinas argues that if God is embodied, Brahman/Nārāyaṇa, consisting of infinite, then God would be something that we know pure, blissful knowledge, is not an abstraction sensibly rather than intellectually. But that one can solely meditate upon, nor is it a sensible knowledge changes; it can be mode of being with which one attempts to distorted by perspective, lost to memory, achieve identity. In other words, it is not the influenced by prejudice. Intellectual nirguṇa Brahman of monistic Advaita.36 In the knowledge, such as mathematical truth, is end, perfectly blissful knowledge is the proper higher, purer, more universal, and more form of Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Person reliable than sensible knowledge. Hence, God (Puruṣotamma) and the sole object of must be something or someone we know Śrīvaiṣṇava devotion.37 Of the svarūpa’s intellectually; God must be disembodied like attributes, two are defining: knowledge in the mathematics, not embodied like a landscape form of bliss (ānandarūpajñānam), and (Aquinas, §20, 6). opposition to all impurity (malapratyanīka). Rāmānuja is not working within Aquinas’ These defining attributes (dharmas) are Platonic hierarchy of being. As we saw above fundamental to all auspicious attributes in our section on the cosmic embodiment of (kalyāṇaguṇas). Indeed, dharma suggests Nārāyaṇa, for Rāmānuja both material nature establishing or supporting,38 implying that the and intellectual truth are fully divine, since defining attributes serve as a ground for the both are solely from God. One cannot be auspicious attributes. Nevertheless, even ranked over the other, as God cannot be these defining attributes are but attributes ranked over God (Rāmānuja, §12, 15). For this (guṇas). They characterize the proper form of reason, sensible experience is as true and real Brahman, but are not that proper form as intellectual experience. Both sensibility and (svarūpa).39 Nārāyaṇa, then, presents with intellectuality are gifts of God, sustained by form and without form, and offers all the God, and to be trusted—like God. benefits of Personalist devotion as well as Related to the objection from locality, the Idealist meditation. According to Rāmānuja, possession of a body suggests limitation to a we don’t have to choose. Nārāyaṇa is an ocean perspective. If we depend on our senses for of auspicious attributes, even those that our knowledge, then our knowledge will be local. limited logic might define as opposing. But if we rely on our intellect for knowledge, Objection: Embodiment subordinates God then our knowledge will be universal. Classical to time. theism defines God as omniscient, knowing all Our God did not begin to be in time: He things from everywhere. Since embodied alone is without beginning, and He is the beings can only know some things from beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, not somewhere, God cannot be embodied. In other pervading matter, but the Maker of words, God’s knowing cannot be limited, material spirits; and of the forms that are

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in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, Instead, he grounds that cause and effect as being Himself the Father of both sensible the substantial and efficient cause of all that is. and invisible things. (Tatian the Syrian)40 He is both the marble and the sculptor, as it Divine embodiment suggests temporality were. For this reason, Nārāyaṇa is denoted as rather than eternality, timefulness instead of the śeṣa (Preserver, Sustainer, Principal) of the timelessness. As noted above, for classical śeṣin (Preserved, Sustained, Accessory), or the Christian theologians, God’s perfection—God’s prakārin (mode-possessor) of the prakāra perfect actuality, devoid of any potentiality— (mode). precludes change. But a body that does not Objection: The incarnation of God in change, a body outside of time, would be a Christ renders Godhead embodiment statue, and a lifeless statue cannot symbolize a redundant. living God. The ascription of timelessness to The Lord did not come to make a display. God necessitates the disembodiment of God, or He came to heal and to teach suffering 41 else God becomes frozen. (The liberal men. For one who wanted to make a theological trajectory within which we are display the thing would have been just to speculating is much less suspicious of divine appear and dazzle the beholders. But for participation in time and/or divine change. Him Who came to heal and to teach the Nevertheless, we include this objection and way was not merely to dwell here, but to response for the sake of thoroughness.) put Himself at the disposal of those who Rāmānuja replies: Nārāyaṇa is not subject to needed Him, and to be manifested time as we know it. according as they could bear it. For Rāmānuja, Nārāyaṇa as embodied is (Athanasius of Alexandria)44 also Nārāyaṇa as eternal, transcending our The Christian tradition asserts the entropic temporality. Hence, divine embodiment of God in Jesus of Nazareth. This embodiment, and its connotation of change divine embodiment ratifies creation as the through relation, need not limit God to time as good handiwork of the Creator. Materiality we know it. Rāmānuja explicitly states that and temporality are the twin blessings of our Nārāyaṇa is beyond the changes (pariṇāma) divinely intended life, a life that God that occur within time (kāla).42 More celebrates through participation. Because explicitly, time is dependent upon Nārāyaṇa Christian theology already asserts the divine for its existence, as is all that exists that is not embodiment in Jesus Christ, we need not Nārāyaṇa. Therefore, he is not under the assert embodiment within the Godhead itself. dominion of time. Rather, time is under the Such an assertion provides no added value and dominion of Nārāyaṇa.43 Nārāyaṇa, who is creates unnecessary theological problems. perfectly free of all impurity, does not know Rāmānuja replies: This-worldly incarnation decay, or karma, or vice, or suffering, or any of and heavenly incarnation are both necessary. the other negative qualities that pervade our Rāmānuja powerfully addresses the above temporal universe. criticism by drawing clear distinctions Since Nārāyaṇa is beyond the changes between human and divine embodiment in (pariṇāma) inherent in time, Nārāyaṇa is also relation to time. As noted above, the divine beyond the cause and effect experienced form (divyarūpa) is not subject to the within saṃsāra. So, he is not subject to the vicissitudes of time (kāla or muhūrta).45 Time, reciprocal interactions of everyday existence.

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conceptualized as a substance devoid of guṇas substituted such abstract concepts as the (qualities) and coordinate with prakṛti,46 does Good, the One, or the Logos for the personal not affect Nārāyaṇa who, even as form, is gods of the masses.52 Articulating Christian unchanging.47 Because Nārāyaṇa is beyond the faith within Hellenistic culture, Christian influence of time, Nārāyaṇa’s divine form is intellectual elites frequently endorsed eternal. That is, Nārāyaṇa does not iconoclasm (the rejection of divine imagery), temporarily assume form within time for the even while the popular tradition remained benefit of worshippers, nor is Nārāyaṇa’s form iconodulic (enthusiastically utilizing divine a mere illusion created for their devotional imagery). The elites suspected that meditations. Instead, any temporal embodiment connoted entanglement with manifestation of Nārāyaṇa is a manifestation matter. God, as the perfectly actual creator of of the real, eternal form of Nārāyaṇa.48 The matter and the natural laws that govern it, divine form may be individualized specifically could not be limited by or subject to His own for the meditative benefit of devotees, but that potential-laden creation. God must be spirit. individualization remains a projection of the Rāmānuja replies: Nārāyaṇa’s body is not real, eternal form that exists prior to any constituted by the same matter that 49 devotional need. constitutes us. The form that Nārāyaṇa assumes Nārāyaṇa’s divine form is aprakṛtic, or explicitly for the benefit of the world is the free of any taint by that profane psychokarmic form of the avatāra (descent), earthly complex that Śrīvaiṣṇavas call prakṛti. While manifestations of Viṣṇu that increase his it has an appearance, it is supersensory and accessibility to earthly devotees and restore visible only to the inner eye of the mind.53 This 50 the earthly dharma. But the avatāra is not is a body, but it is not a material body. Here, the divine form per se. It is instead a temporal Rāmānuja is influenced by Muṇḍāka Upaniṣad descent of the eternal divine form for 3.1.8, which he quotes in part and we supply in expressly temporal purposes. The divine form whole: itself remains in Vaikuṇṭha, the heavenly Not by sight, not by speech, nor by any abode, transcendent of entropic, prakṛtic time other sense; as we know it. nor by austerities or rites is he Objection: Assertion of divine grasped. embodiment reduces divinity to Rather the partless one is seen by a man, materiality. as he meditates, Matter is in potentiality. But we have when his being has become pure, shown (I: 2:3) that God is pure act, without through the lucidity of knowledge.54 any potentiality. Hence it is impossible We must note that just as Nārāyaṇa’s body is that God should be composed of matter aprakṛtic it is also free from karma and and form. (St. Thomas Aquinas)51 voluntarily chosen. Jīvas (individual souls), on In the classical world, Greco-Roman the other hand, involuntarily receive bodies Idealism—Platonism, Plotinianism, Stoicism, (human or otherwise) appropriate to their etc.—rejected anthropomorphic gods and karmic destiny. They then live out their lives their accompanying imagery as illiterate within that body subject to the bonds of karma superstition. Fearing that material gods and bound to the pleasures and pains of produced materialistic worshipers, they saṃsāric existence. So, Nārāyaṇa’s aprakṛtic

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body is necessarily an akarmic body. Nārāyaṇa (divyarūpa) in relationship to the divine is embodied because he is omnipotent and has formlessness (svarūpa), Rāmānuja states that chosen to become embodied.55 it is tadvad eva, or “just like that”. Rāmānuja Nārāyaṇa’s omnipotence; Nārāyaṇa’s then goes on to state that “this divine form is transcendence. of Brahman’s essential way of being” While reconciling Nārāyaṇa’s role as both [divyarūpam api svabhāvikam asti]. In other material and efficient cause of the universe, words, Nārāyaṇa with form is not penultimate Rāmānuja notes that reason cannot restrict to Nārāyaṇa without form; they are two 57 the power of God. By mundane standards, manifestations of one, ultimate unity. material and efficient causality are mutually Nārāyaṇa’s beauty attracts, while exclusive—the marble does not carve itself Nārāyaṇa’s pure, blissful knowledge provides into a statue. But by divine standards material a goal of human spiritual becoming. and efficient causality are reconcilable within Nārāyaṇa’s personality begets love, while one entity. Indeed, Nārāyaṇa unites material Nārāyaṇa’s svarūpa engenders meditation. and efficient causality through the divine The devotee thus seeks both the transcendent omnipotence (sarvaśakti)—creating, (insofar as Nārāyaṇa retains a humanlike form sustaining, and forming the universe and all in Vaikuṇṭha), and the immanent (insofar as beings within it.56 Nārāyaṇa’s pure, blissful jñāna (wisdom) Throughout Rāmānuja’s arguments above remains the infinite ground of the finite jīva’s is an underlying conviction that exclusivist [individual soul’s] being). Through worshiping logic does not bind Nārāyaṇa. We humans Nārāyaṇa who is in Vaikuṇṭha, the devotee cannot be here and there, located body and become paradoxically aware of the omnipresent spirit, but Nārāyaṇa can. For omnipresence of divinity. Through reception Rāmānuja, Nārāyaṇa is so exalted that the of Nārāyaṇa’s grace, the devotee is purified accusation of divine contradiction is into his or her true self. According to incomprehensible. Rational law, created and Rāmānuja, for the devotees of Nārāyaṇa the sustained by Nārāyaṇa, cannot restrict the transcendent is immanent, ecstasis is enstasis, overflowing grace of Nārāyaṇa, who chooses love is wisdom, and beauty is bliss. There is no to be both embodied and omnipresent, for us. longer any need to choose between devotion By way of consequence, we should dismiss the and meditation. All has been reconciled in the charge of divine contradiction as a human divine person, Nārāyaṇa, who offers all attempt to limit the divine freedom. manner of salvation. God is equally embodied and formless, Godhead embodiment and the Christian accessible and transcendent. That is, tradition: A metaphor too far? according to Rāmānuja as he interprets Proposing the embodiment of God, unto Śrīvaiṣṇava scripture, God is characterized by the Godhead, may draw criticism as an both form (a located aspect that is somewhere) excessive anthropomorphism. Some and formlessness (an omnipresent aspect that theologians, insisting that God is wholly other, is everywhere). Yet, neither of these aspects is might complain that embodiment risks too subordinate or ancillary to the other. Rather, much and brings God too low. Ideally, they are equally real, equally legitimate, and theological metaphors point to a reality they equally proper to Nārāyaṇa. In fact, when cannot reach. The metaphors of personhood, introducing the divine, embodied form vulnerability, and participation may suggest

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an involved God, but do not necessitate embodiment. Certainly, God’s embodiment embodiment. Instead, our critics might argue, differs from our embodiment. Nevertheless, to the concept of embodiment unnecessarily be truly distinct, to truly experience increase- lowers God into our analogies, reducing the through-relation, the divine persons would divine to human comprehension and benefit from bodies through which their eradicating any sense of mystery. selves sound. If the Trinitarian Godhead is a For these reasons, the Christian tripersonal community of joy, then it requires theological tradition has generally rejected differentiated centers of identity through Godhead embodiment. However, in the which that joy can flow. It requires bodies, thought of Rāmānuja we find a highly because bodies facilitate locatedness and sophisticated theology that enthusiastically difference, everything that makes relatedness endorses embodiment. Indeed, Rāmānuja meaningful. anticipates and responds to Christian Idealism is not more sophisticated than theological (not biblical) arguments against personalism. embodiment. The rationality of his theology In the history of religious interactions, challenges these Christian arguments, even as Idealist religions frequently condescend to they derive from the sources and methods of Personalist religions. In the West, for example, the Hindu Vedānta tradition. Given contemplative Platonism, Plotinianism, and Rāmānuja’s success in addressing theological Stoicism looked down on popular theism. arguments against embodiment, constructive Likewise, Rāmānuja’s primary opponents were theologians must evaluate embodiment on the transtheistic, meditative Advaitins, who axiological, not ontological, grounds. In other prioritized nirguṇa (attributeless) Brahman words, we must consider the consequences of over saguṇa (attributed) Brahman. Indeed, the doctrine, its resonance with felt human Rāmānuja’s theological vocation was to existence, how it would play out in inspire devotional, Śrīvaiṣṇava Tamils as they communitarian life, the ethics it would confronted meditative, Advaitin elitism. commend, and the future it would hope for. A powerful Advaitin condemnation of Below, I will argue (speculatively) for Godhead devotional theology may be found in Śaṅkara’s embodiment in the Christian tradition. These commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad: arguments will utilize and adapt the theology He, one who is not a knower of Brahman, of Rāmānuja for the Christian tradition. who worships another god, a god different Embodiment fulfills the tripersonal Godhead. from himself, approaches him in a Recent doctrines of divine vulnerability, subordinate position, offering him praises, affectivity, relationality, and mutability beg salutations, sacrifices, presents, devotion, completion through divine embodiment. meditation, etc., thinking, “He is one, non- Embodiment dovetails with personality. In the self, different from me, and I am another, Latin etymology of the word “person,” a qualified for rites, and I must serve him “person” was a dramatic mask, that which an like a debtor”—worships him with such actor would “sound through” (personare). The ideas, does not know the truth. He, this mask was a concrete expression of the ignorant man, has not only the evil of character’s abstract values, dispositions, and ignorance, but is also like an animal to the habits—of their personality. Personality gods. As a cow or other animals are suggests relatedness, and relatedness suggests utilized through their services such as

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carrying loads or yielding milk, so is this be forced—form and formlessness are not man of use to every one of the gods and competing aspects of the divine person; they others on account of his many services are complementary qualities that manifest such as the performance of sacrifices. That God’s superabundance. Biblically, based on the is to say, he is therefore engaged to do all doctrine of imago dei in Genesis One, kinds of services for them.58 Christians can propose divine embodiment, Śaṅkara then goes on to assert that these gods, confident that they are not projecting human being pleased by the service of their devotees, identity onto God, but respecting God’s own would not want the devotees to achieve mokṣa gracious creation of humankind in the divine, (realization, release), since this release would personal image. Rāmānuja’s triumph can end the devotees’ service toward the gods. Just inspire Christians, empowering them to as a human becomes distressed at losing a celebrate the human situation through the valued animal, so the gods become distressed doctrine of Godhead embodiment. at losing a valued servant. Therefore, the gods In the end, the most important fact attempt to keep many humans in bondage by regarding the svarūpa and divyarūpa of convincing them of the difference between Nārāyaṇa is the simultaneous existence of gods and humans when in fact, all that is, is each within Rāmānuja’s Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. Brahman. His ascription of two distinct manifestations Advancing his own theistic Śrīvaiṣṇavism, to one ultimate Nārāyaṇa grants the tradition Rāmānuja counters the Advaitins by insisting both spiritual comprehensiveness and cultic that Brahman as Nārāyaṇa (the personal name elasticity. With regard to spiritual of God) is an ocean of auspicious attributes comprehensiveness, in Nārāyaṇa the even as his proper form is pure, blissful Śrīvaiṣṇava devotee finds the Infinite Absolute knowledge. In this way Rāmānuja reconciles of Upaniṣadic meditation married to the Tamil devotionalism with the Upaniṣadic personal God of Śrīvaiṣṇava devotionalism. emphasis on the ultimacy of wisdom (jñāna). With regard to cultic elasticity, the But in achieving this reconciliation, Rāmānuja Śrīvaiṣṇavas are now justified in practicing makes the weighty decision to emphasize both the ecstatic, relational worship of their Nārāyaṇa’s differentiation over against his own saints (the Alvars), as well as the enstatic, unity. This emphasis establishes as real and nondual meditation suggested by the early ultimate all attributes associated with Upaniṣads. In other words, the divyarūpa and Nārāyaṇa, including those more closely svarūpa of Nārāyaṇa represent a synthesis of associated with the embodied, highly personal traditions generally considered exclusive, divine form (divyarūpa). creating a spacious tradition within which Pastoral benefits of the both/and God. different religious personalities could find a Rāmānuja’s reconciliation of divine home. transcendence and divine embodiment has Christians considering Godhead important ecclesiastical implications. By embodiment should experience the idea as adopting and adapting Rāmānuja’s theology, opportunity, not threat. We all of us are Christians can marry personal attributes to embodied souls or ensouled bodies. We are transcendent attributes in a seamless both qualified (bearing difference, viśiṣṭa) and synthesis who is intimately accessible yet nondual (perfectly unified, advaita). We are utterly majestic. And this marriage need not viśiṣṭādvaita, synthesizing spirit and matter

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into diversified, unified experience. To nature as perfectly unified, or nondual. Yet, if privilege spirit over matter or matter over embodiment is a blessing, then embodiment spirit rejects the interwoven, inseparable may not only be from God; it may also be of nature of reality as God intended it. Out of God. Since embodiment and transcendence love, God has joined our souls to bodies, so that are not logically exclusive, we can have both spirit might experience differentiation and and the synergistic concept of God that they perspective. This differentiation and offer. Rāmānuja has shown that reason does perspective grants uniqueness to each not demand the disembodiment of God, and member of the community, allowing them to that embodiment does not lower God into the make a singular contribution, rendering their limits of our metaphorical language. Hence, uniqueness vital. Collectively, each our decision to accept divine embodiment or individual’s difference helps the group. By not is an axiological decision, not an opening ourselves up to the vision of all ontological decision. It is plausible, but is it members, we can achieve a dynamic interplay good? According to Rāmānuja, divine of viewpoints that quickens our knowing. We embodiment is salvific. If he is right, then our can know more as individuals uniting than we acceptance of divine embodiment will help us ever could as individuals separated, or even as to celebrate our own embodiment, and the one universal mind. To paraphrase Paul, we rich relation to God, others, and the cosmos can know more as an ecclesia (1 Corinthians that this embodiment allows. 12:12-20). We should not separate what God has joined. God invites us to celebrate our dual

Notes http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.ht 1 Athanasius. Contra Gentes. Edited and m#20. Accessed April 2, 2018. translated by Robert W. Thomson. Oxford Early 5 Clark Pinnock et al. The Openness of God: A Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 85. Biblical Challenge to the Traditional 2 Augustine. The Trinity. Translated by Understanding of God. Illinois: Intervarsity Press, Stephen McKenna in The Fathers of the Church: A 1994. New Translation, vol. 45. Washington, DC: The 6 Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow. Goddess Catholic University of America Press, 1963. 464. and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied 3 Irenaeus. Against Heresies. Translated by Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2016. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. From 61-63. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander 7 Thomas J. Oord. The Uncontrolling Love of Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. God: an open and relational account of providence. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., Illinois: IVP Academic, 2015. 147-148. 1885.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin 8 St.Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Knight. Web: Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103506.htm. Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947. 1.1.9. Accessed July 21, 2018. Online: https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ summa. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Contra Accessed March 2, 2018. Gentiles, or On the Truth of the Catholic Faith. 9 Jurgen Moltmann. The Trinity and the Translated by Anton C. Pegis, James F. Anderson, Kingdom: The Doctrine of God. Translated by Vernon J. Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil (New York: Margaret Kohl. San Francisco: Harper and Row Hanover House, 1955-57). I.89.3. Online. Publishers, 1981. 16-20.

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23 10 Brunner, Emil. The Christian Doctrine of God Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad. §3.8. Cited in (Dogmatics: Volume 1). Translated by Olive Wyon, Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated by (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1950). 266- Raghavachar, §224, 175. 24 271. St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles. 11 Ian G. Barbour. Religion and Science: Chapter 43, No. 17. Accessed April 4, 2018. 25 Historical and Contemporary Issues, (New York: William J. Wainwright. “God's Body.” Journal HarperSanFrancisco, 1997). 234. of the American Academy of Religion. 42:3:1974 12 Rāmānuja. Vedarthasamgraha. Translated (470-481.) 471. Citing St. Thomas Aquinas. On the by S.S. Raghavachar. Mysore, India: Sri Rama- Truth of the Catholic Faith. Chapter 20, No. 5. 26 krishna Ashrama, 1956. §95, 76. Francis X. Clooney. Theology After Vedānta: 13 C.A. Dubray. “Emanationism.” In The An Experiment in Comparative Theology. New Catholic Encyclopedia (1909). Online: York: State University of New York Press, 1993. 80- http://www.new advent.org/cathen/05397b.htm. 85. 27 14 Friedrich Schleiermacher. Christian Faith. Jon Paul Sydnor. “Rāmānuja’s Philosophy of Translated by Terrence N. Tice, Catherine L. Kelsey, Divinity: From Brahman to Narayana.” Journal of and Edwina Lawler. Edited by Terrence N. Tice and Vaishnava Studies. 16:2:2008 (3-26). 20-21. 28 Catherine L. Kelsey. Louisville: Westminster John Clement of Alexandria. The Stromata, or Knox Press, 2016. §100.1. Miscellanies. Volume 5, Chapter 12. Translated by 15 Schleiermacher. Christian Faith. §157.2, 697– William Wilson. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. 98. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and 16 Joseph A. Bracken. “Creation Ex Nihilo: A A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Field-Oriented Approach.” Dialog: A Journal of Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) Revised and edited Theology 44:3:246-249 (Fall 2005). 247. for New Advent by Kevin Knight. 17 Ankur Barua. “God’s Body at Work: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0210.htm. Rāmānuja and Panentheism.” International Accessed February 7, 2018. 29 Journal of Hindu Studies 14:1:2010 (1-30). Wainwright. “God’s Body.” 471. Citing Saint 18 Ludwig Feurbach. The Essence of John of Damascus. Writings. Translated by Christianity. Translated by G. Elliot. (New York: Frederick J. Chase. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic Harper and Row, 1957. 18. As quoted in Stephen P. University of America, 1958). 171. 30 Thornton. “Facing up to Feuerbach.” International Jon Paul Sydnor. “What is a Person? Journal for Philosophy of Religion 39:2:103-120 Rāmānuja’s Vedāntic Anthropology.” Journal of (April 1996). 111. Vaishnava Studies 25:1:2016 (85-98). 92. 31 19 Stephen P. Thornton. “Facing up to Saint John of Damascus. Writings. Translated Feuerbach.” International Journal for Philosophy by Frederick Chase, Jr. Washington D.C.: The of Religion 39:2:103-120 (April 1996). 112. Catholic University of America, 1958. 171. Online. 20 Julius Lipner. The Face of Truth: A Study of https://books.google.com. Accessed March 12, Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedantic 2018. 32 Theology of Ramanuja. Albany: State University of Ibid. As cited by Wainwright, “God’s Body,” New York Press, 1986. 97. 471. 33 21 Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated Rāmānuja, Vedartha-Samgraha. Dedication, by Raghavachar, §226, 177. page 1. Italics added. 34 22 Brhadaranyaka Upaniṣad, §2.3.6: “The form Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles, or On the of this Person [Brahman] is like a saffron-colored Truth of the Catholic Faith. Chapter 20, No. 6. 35 robe.” The Thirteen Principal Upanishads Wainwright. “God’s Body.” 475. 36 Translated from the Sanskrit. Translated by Hume, Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated 97. Cited in Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. by Raghavachar, §6, 6-7. 37 Translated by Raghavachar, §223, 175. Ibid.

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38 Grimes, John. “Dharma.” A Concise Publishers (Princeton Theological Monograph Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Series). 2011. 105. 56 Defined in English. New York: State University of Ramanuja, Vedartha-Samgraha, transl. by New York Press, 1996. See also Monier-Williams, Raghavachar, §35, 32. 57 “Dharman,” 512. Rāmānuja. Vedanta-Sutras. Translated by 39 Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated Thibaut. §1.1.21, 240. 58 by Raghavachar, §116, 89. Śaṅkara. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad with 40 Tatian the Syrian. Address to the Greeks. the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Chapter 4, page 9. Translated by Rev. B. P. Pratten. Swami Madhavananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, In Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edited by 2004. §1.4.10, 117. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Volume Bibliography III: Tatian, Theophilus, and the Clementine Athanasius of Alexandria. Contra Gentes. Recognitions. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1867. Online: Translated by Robert W. Thomson. Oxford https://books.google.com. Accessed February 26, Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 2018. 1971). 41 Wainwright. “God’s Body.” 472-473. Citing St. Athanasius of Alexandria. On the Incarnation. Thomas Aquinas. On the Truth of the Catholic Translated by John Behr. New York: St. Faith, chap. 20, No. 4. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011. 42 Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated Augustine. The Trinity. Translated by Stephen by Raghavachar, §41, §47. McKenna in The Fathers of the Church: A New 43 Ibid., §157, 126-127. Translation, vol. 45. Washington, DC: The 44 Athanasius of Alexandria. On the Catholic University of America Press, 1963. Incarnation. Translated by John Behr. New York: Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011. 48. Contemporary Issues, (New York: 45 Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. Translated HarperSanFrancisco, 1997). by Raghavachar, §217, 171. Barua, Ankur. “God’s Body at Work: Rāmānuja and 46 Grimes, “Kala,” 156. Panentheism.” International Journal of Hindu 47 Ramanuja, Vedartha-Samgraha, transl. by Studies 14:1:2010 (1-30). DOI: Raghavachar, §218, 171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-010-9086-z 48 Ibid., §222, 174-175. Bracken, Joseph A. “Creation Ex Nihilo: A Field- 49 Ramanuja, Vedanta-Sutras, transl. by Oriented Approach.” Dialog: A Journal of Thibaut, §1.1.21. Theology 44:3:2005 (246-249). DOI: 50 Ramanuja, Vedartha-Samgraha, transl. by https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0012- Raghavachar, §162, 130. 2033.2005.00264.x 51 Aquinas. Summa Theologiae. I.3.2. Brunner, Emil, The Christian Doctrine of God http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm#ar (Dogmatics: Volume 1), translated by Olive ticle2. Accessed March 4, 2018. Wyon, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 52 Wainwright. “God’s Body.” 474. 1950). 53 Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha. §222, 223, Christ, Carol P. and Judith Plaskow. Goddess and 174-175. God in the World: Conversations in Embodied 54 Mundaka Upanisad. Translated by Patrick Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, Olivelle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 2016. DOI: As cited in Rāmānuja. Vedartha-Samgraha §3.1.8, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt19qgfhp 275. Clement of Alexandria. The Stromata, or 55 Jon Paul Sydnor. Rāmānuja and Miscellanies. Volume 5, Chapter 12. Translated Schleiermacher: Toward a Constructive by William Wilson. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Comparative Theology. Oregon: Wipf and Stock Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James

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https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol31/iss1/19 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1696 18 Sydnor: Does God Have a Body? R?m?nuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradi

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